Do you have the stomach thing or the throat thing? Or both? Everyone I know has either just gotten rid of one of those illnesses or is still trying to kick it. People on opposite ends of North America have complained to me of the same symptoms within days of one another. It seemed to be everywhere at once.

A similarly fast-spreading and pervasive outbreak has plagued equipment vendors this season. It started with a general achiness that abruptly got worse. ADC called in sick. Then Adtran. Carrier Access. Redback. Tellabs. Motorola. Next thing you know, everyone’s all caked over with snot and puking on their slippers. What happened?

It wasn’t all inter-related. Motorola said it was having trouble with sales of wireless devices. Redback said its proposed acquisition by Ericsson was clogging things up. But most vendors blamed the merger of AT&T and BellSouth and the pauses in spending that occurred from each carrier (and their joint venture, Cingular Wireless) before the FCC approved the deal.

I discussed all this in a podcast last month. If you look at my photo in this newsletter as you play the podcast, you can hear my voice and see my face simultaneously. And if you make one of your arms fall asleep and then fold both arms, you can pretend I am holding your hand at the same time. (I’m told this is how a lot of people prefer to do it.)

Anyway, what I was talking about? Oh yeah. The fast and far-reaching ripple effect of the merger’s time in limbo and the amount of damage done are important to note, as they gives us a glimpse of some of the hazards in a carrier-consolidated world. Now that the U.S. telecom industry rests almost entirely in the hands of just three companies, any sneeze or cough from just one of them will have huge implications for the entire vendor community. It’s something for suppliers to think about and prepare for before flu season rolls around again.